Better Than Chocolate
by scullyseviltwin
Summary: A Friday night alone, or so Sara thinks. A bar, a martini and some conversation leads to something better.


Title: Better Than Chocolate

Author: ScullyAsTrinity

Rating: PG-13

Thanks: Equal thanks go to Marlou and Lauren. Lauren... you are a one-woman wrecking crew. Gave me the idea and general. I'm buying an APB OJ in your honor. Marlou, the greatest beta ever.

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Martinis made her feel sexy. She didn't know if it was the way they looked, sluicing in that oddly shaped glass, or how they felt sliding down her throat. A simple little drink, but so nice to swirl your finger in. So clear and crisp and enchanting. Vodka, and this time, creme de cacao. Such a wonderful little coctail.

It was nice, the noise of the bar lulled her into feeling completely invisible. And it was nice, nothing to nag her, nothing to pull at the strings of her mind, or to make her think of things more important. For all that anyone else knew, she was an anonymous tourist in one of Vegas's many bars, just relaxing.

So she sat alone in a booth close to the front and ordered a martini. They always seemed to unravel her in just the right way. Sara needed to be alone for a while, alone amongst people. She needed to feel like she was normal, for a moment. Part of society.

The taste buds on her tongue sang happily as she let the drink settle there for a moment. It was the equivalent of a liquid massage to her brain. So refreshed, and so very relaxed... blinking even felt nice.

Midway through her second, feeling pleasantly warm, a man walked up to her. She was about to smile and send him on his way, when she recognized his voice.

"I uh, can you pretend like I'm trying to pick you up?"

She paused mid-drink and raised her eyes to meet his. "Excuse me?" The vodka nearly cascaded out of her glass at that moment as she met his eyes, blue and lost.

"Leonard is having less than romantic notions of taking you home this evening." He gestured to the rather handsome man sitting at the bar and she leaned around Grissom's large frame to get a better look.

Sara licked her lips, nimble fingers guiding her martini glass back and forth across the distressed mahogany table. "And you came to save me?"

Grissom shrugged, wondering if he should sit down or continue to stand.

A laugh would have been too unsettling for him, so she simply smiled and stared into the shallow depths of her drink. "My knight in rather tarnished armor." But, glancing up at him, she ammended that thought. "Okay, my knight in rather nice armor, especially for his wardrobe."

With that, he slid into the booth, glancing back at his old friend, the man giving him the thumbs up. His stomach nearly turned at the asinine gesture. "Thank you, I suppose." Looking down at his clothing, he shrugged.

And she too shrugged, continuing to draw the glass back and forth over the tabletop. And they both fell silent. He bit his lip, knowing full well that if he didn't put on a good show, Leonard would come over to "save" her from him. But he could think of nothing to speak of, just watching her fingers move back and forth, back and forth.

"What in god's name are you drinking?" He asked suddenly, stilling her movement, spurring her to look at him with an amused expression.

He glanced down at her beverage of choice. It looked like chocolate milk but the consistancy was much thinner. It most certainly wasn't Kahlua...

"It's a chocolate martini Grissom." She said it as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She picked a chocolate flake off of the rim and placed it in her mouth. He followed her movement with something resembling wonder.

He wrinkled his nose just a bit and spoke, "That sounds vile."

Sara pursed her lips and slid the glass across the table. "It's good. Try it." And she smiled at him and leaned back in the booth, sliding down a bit, crossing her arms over her chest. He looked from the glass to her and back. But he tried it, bringing the glass to his lips and sipping hesitantly.

As his tongue picked up the flavor, he was stunned to find that he actually liked it. "Not bad." He pushed the glass back towards Sara and in a moment of unseen bravery raised his hand and motioned to the waitress.

"Can I get two more of these, please?" He gestured to Sara's martini and the waitress nodded and scribbled something down on her pad, walking away through the crowd, dodging people as she went.

She didn't bother asking him why, or, well, why. She just maintained her relaxed posture and finished off the drink that was still in front of her. He settled back as well, not sure what to say, and rather comfortable with that. He smiled at her, she smiled at him, and they both sighed.

The waitress came with their drinks and he took his, sipping rather appreciatively.

"So you took Leo out and now you want nothing to do with him? Or did you just come over to save me from myself?"

He chuckled, taking the bait. "Leonard, I was being cordial and, no, I was saving you from him." She raised a brow at that and started in on her new drink. "He can be rather..." Grissom searched for the words and mimicked her finger movements with his glass. "He can be rather overbearing and persuasive."

The booth felt so wonderful against her bare back and she sunk into the corner of it, drawing her legs alongside it, cropping the mischeivous smile she wished to emit. The atmosphere was miraculously charged and it felt supremely soothing, tingling against her skin. Her skin, it felt fresh and new and ready for new stimulation.

"I can see that." Sara commented, glancing at the man who'd all but forgotten the two of them, nursing his beer.

"Excuse me?"

"He does look debonair, well kept; he looks suave." Sara smiled at him them, tongue peeking out between cherry-glossed lips.

"How can you tell from here?"

"Well, I'm not projecting on his personality really, just... how he looks. Women would swoon for a man like that."

"You would?" Gil looked back at the man at the bar, catching him in the midst of ordering a drink for the woman sitting next to him.

"No, I said women would. I was generalizing."

He nodded and turned back to her, finding relief in his cool beverage. "Generalizing is dangerous."

She snorted a half-laugh through her nose and peered at him over the rim of her glass. "Yeah, don't I know it."

The words rolled off her tongue before she had the chance to realize that it made her sound irriated. She wasn't; anything but. But he knew it to be true. He generalized a lot, especially when she was around. He couldn't help it, it was part of his complex system of defense mechanisms to halt her from cracking his resolve as she was incredibly prone to do. But his resolve was weakening on its own; the alcohol lubricated the screws until pieces began to disengage from the whole and the system began to fail.

His eyes were drawn to her lips when she smiled. He couldn't help it.

Then again, his eyes were naturally drawn to her. She looked five hundred times different, sitting there against the maroon leather of the booth. If it weren't for the shiny texture of her top, she would have blended perfectly with the seat holding her. A tight tank top, but not too tight, and when she shifted, he could see that the top was backless, save for a few straps. She wasn't wearing a bra, there was just no possible way.

Two fingers to his forehead, he tore his eyes away from the bare, freckled skin and met her eyes. "And what drew you away from the scanner this evening?" He ended his sentence with a long pull on his glass, finishing it off. He gained the waitresses attention and pointed to the glass, ordering another. It was impossible for her not to smile when he did so.

"I'll ignore the fact that you're calling me a shut in." Sara chided and swigged a tiny bit from her glass, opening to him like a morning glory in the warm spring sun. "I needed a breather, that's all."

"Hmm, a breather?"

She nodded. "My apartment just became too... oppressive. I wanted to see if I could still blend in with the crowd."

He toyed with his fresh drink and ducked his head and turned to look over at where Leonard was seated. But he wasn't there anymore. He'd either given up on his friend or had taken the woman he was attempting to woo back to his hotel room. Either way, Grissom was glad to be rid of him and sighed, relieved.

Sara noticed as well and nodded in the general direction of the bar. "I guess you're off the hook now." It was a double entendre. He was relieved of the other man's oppressive presence as well as off the hook with her. He didn't have to sit there any longer. He'd already done himself the duty of "saving" her.

But he made no move to leave, and after a moment she realized that he was indeed staying. SHe didn't have time to point it out to him, because he miraculously began to speak.

"Though that does leave me stranded. He drove me here in his Lexus." Grissom nodded, somewhat cynically and pursed his lips.

"He drove here?"

"Oh no, but he felt the need to rent the same model as he owns. He says it makes him feel more comfortable. Smarmy bastard."

"If that's how you speak about your friends, I'd hate to hear you speak about your enemies."

"You're in luck then, because I tend not to bring them up in polite conversation." At that he chuckled and finished off his second martini. Feeling loose and more than a little happy, he ordered a boubon, all the while thinking about how horrendous it was to allow mixed drinks and hard liquor to mingle.

Unbidded her brow shot up at his request and she nearly shook with glee. She was having drinks with him, she was having drinks with Gil Grissom. Of his own accord.

His bourbon came in the middle of a mental war, wondering if he should comment of her attire or not. But his mild manner seemed to have checked out when he sat down across from her. "Is that top defying physics? How does it stay on?"

Sara had to concentrate to keep the liquored chocolate from shooting out of her nose. "What?" Not that she hadn't heard him, she simply couldn't believe he'd said what he had.

Generally, his face, stoic when he asked such things in all seriousness was flushed with slight inebriation and tinged with passion. A stunning sight for her to behold and she was nearly choked to silence seeing him undone so. "It uh, it ties in the back."

He nodded and moved his head a bit, as if to get a better view of the shirt. Whether concious or not, she moved to accomodate his searching gaze.

The naked skin of her back, freckled and smooth danced in his eyes and he called on every ounce of self control in his body not to bite his lip. So instead, he simply nodded and she sat back against the booth, cradling the dregs of chocolately abandon in her hands.

"You're in rare form this evening." She laughed, deciding to down the last of her drink. "Care to explain yourself, or just let me go on thinking someone slipped you something in your drink?"

He shrugged. He was doing a lot of shrugging and it was beginning to unsettle him. "Think whatever you'd like. Because I have no idea."

That, for some reason, stunned them both into silence. Her lips pursed once more and she nodded with something resembling a tight smile and he did the same a moment later.

"Mmm, I think you've had enough Grissom." She grinned, licked her lips and winked at him, moving in the booth to straighten up her top. She stood and he looked on as she stretched her neck, glorious lines of tan, naked skin for his eyes to dance over. "Come on, I'll give you a ride."

"No you won't."

Her face fell. "Well, I-"

"You've had too much to drink, I'll drive." He too stood and threw forty dollars down on the table, stilling her hand as she reached for her wallet. Then he began to make his way through the crowd, walking towards the exit. Shaking the fuzz out of her head, she followed him into the cool Vegas night.

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